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Saturday, 25 January 2014

Architecture

I had such a positive response to my Our House, that I decided to have a go at designing a house pattern. So my new interest is architecture. You may see me wandering around my local neighbourhood, gazing upwards at the angle of a roof, or pondering the shape of a window. Or perhaps peering down the side of your house to see what interesting objects you have stored there.

I have come up with the Little Woollie House Pattern. I was keen to have chimneys, and a dormer window, but have made the pattern fairly flexible. You can vary the number of storeys, and whether you have one, two or no dormer windows.

The main walls of Little Woollie House are knitted in the round on five doublepoints. For the roof and gable ends you knit on two needles. There is very little sewing up, which I hope will please some people.Compared to my Our House, I have taken more care with the doors and windows, and the pattern contains a chart to help you with their size and position, although again you may not want to stick to this. The pattern also includes knitting instructions on how to make a little bird for the roof.

I think the fun with making a Little Woollie House is adding the details. These are embroidered on once the basic house is completed, and use nothing more complicated than backstitch, stem stitch, french knots, and blanket stitch. You can find permanent phototutorials for these stitches on my blog in the righthand sidebar. The pattern does not contain detailed instructions for everything I have added to my houses, but I hope that the photos will give people a good starting point. I have a few mores ideas, and particularly like mixing the traditional and modern. Perhaps a knocked over dustbin at the side of the house, with a fox looking guilty!

I have gone a bit to town (pun intended) on my samples houses.

The single storey Croft has slightly smaller windows and a sheep grazing round the back, and a satellite dish for those long Scottish evenings.

On my two storey Town Houses I have experimented with the windows: window boxes below, or brickwork above. One house has is a bicycle parked at the side, a ladder, and a little white cat. The other one has large tree at the side, a dove on the roof, and a little black cat.

The wool I used for these two houses and the croft are both James C. Brett - Marble. I found this wool in a small hardware shop, in a rack between various buckets and brushes. I have not seen it for sale in other shops, but I really love how the colour changes to give a natural weathered look, and with a bit of research you can find this wool online. Although any doubleknit wool will work.

And finally what I call the Grand House has a blackbird on the roof, and large tree with squirrel and swing at the back. Hubby, ever practical, says that it worries him as the tree is much too close to the foundations.

I have enjoyed making these house so much, and hope that anyone who has a go at making a house from my pattern will link their project back to the pattern or me, as I would love to see them. My sample houses are off to Etsy, and the Little Woollie House pattern is available on Craftsy, ravelry and Etsy.

Hi I just love all the houses that you have knitted up and you are so creative and talented. I too have an interest in knitting and maybe you would like to visit my blog at Julie's Lifestyle julieslifestyle.blogspot.com I saw this at the submarine sunday party.Julie

My goodness how have you completed all these amazing creations in such a short time! They really are works of art, full of character and fun. I think my fav has to be the little crofters cottage - i adore the sheep! x

I love these, I'm a big fan of little houses and often take a quick sketch of one or two when I'm out and about, I've even been known to take photo's. Sometimes I have a look on google maps and 'walk' down the street looking at the properties. :) I'm sure all crafters have a little bit of crazyness in them.... I know I have (and my husband agrees with me)

These are just super. The added details of the bike, the trees and the birds really make them special. I'd be tempted to stuff them with foam blocks just to square them up. I can imagine creating whole play villages with them!